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WEB Drug shows promise for treating brain tumors resulting from breast cancer trial reports

August 8 2024 by Steven Lee

A drug effective in treating breast cancer shows new promise in addressing breast cancer with brain metastases or recurrent glioblastoma

Researchers from Drexels College of Medicine have identified new drugs that show early success in shrinking breast cancer tumors that have spread to the brain, offering hope for patients with a particularly difficult-to-treat form of the disease.

The drug, trastuzumab deruxtecan, is already approved to treat a type of advanced breast cancer called HER2-positive breast cancer. In a new study, researchers found that the drug was also effective in treating breast cancer that had spread to the brain, a condition known as brain metastases.

The study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, included 51 patients with HER2-positive breast cancer that had spread to the brain. The patients were treated with trastuzumab deruxtecan, and the results were promising. The drug was well-tolerated, and it led to a significant reduction in tumor size in 60% of patients.

These findings are exciting because there are currently no effective treatments for breast cancer that has spread to the brain. The new drug could offer hope to patients with this devastating form of the disease.

The researchers are now conducting a larger study to confirm the findings of this early study. If the results of the larger study are positive, trastuzumab deruxtecan could become a new standard of care for treating breast cancer that has spread to the brain.